North City C

Mark woke up from a deep sleep. He slowly got up to see the bright light of the day.

'What? What time is it?' he wondered and quickly checked the clock. It was 2:13 pm. "Pm? Wha— Oh, did I fall asleep?" he quickly realized what had happened.

His head hurt a bit and his body was also quite hot from sleeping during the day. 'God, I'm not used to a nap,' he thought and quickly went to the bathroom to wash himself awake.

Once he was feeling better, he returned back to the room. "What was I doing bef— My goblin warrior!" Mark quickly remembered and rushed to the black box.

He opened it in a hurry and only a single marble was remaining. 'Do I get a hobgoblin?' he said with an excited voice and picked up the marble.

He put it towards the window to see what was inside. The first thing he saw immediately disappointed him.

He was the color green. Hobgoblins all had pale green skins, so if he saw a green skin, then his luck didn't work out and he didn't get one.

"Tsk. Here I was so excited. Sh*t, now I feel awful."

He was about to put the marble back down when he noticed something. There was something black on the goblin's body.

'What's that?' he thought and went in for a closer look. His eyes went wide when he finally realized what it was.

"I-Is that… a sword?" he said with utter shock written all over his face. The goblin warrior marble now had a sword in it.

He couldn't tell clearly, but it looked like a two-handed sword that was quite wide as well and nearly as long as the goblin warrior itself.

"If the goblin warrior is this tall… then… holy hell that's quite a large sword," he thought. As he was looking at the sword, he noticed something else.

It wasn't something drastically different, but from what he could tell, the goblin warrior was much more muscular now.

'Is that the change? It's muscular now? Sigh, whatever,' he thought and put it back into his body, and opened status.

———————————

[Status:

Name: Mark Grier

Age: 17

Level: 1 (46%)

Monster Slots Available: 1

Monster Slots Used: 1

Slot 1: Goblin Swordsman

Skills: Locked

Inventory: Locked

]

———————

It didn't register to him what he was looking at the first time. He only searched for the percentage, and when he didn't see them, he got a little confused.

However, when he finally did see the thing, his eyes went wide.

"A goblin swordsman? What's a goblin swordsman? ," he said in shock. He had never heard of such a monster before, and yet, there it was now.

"A goblin swordsman? That should be higher than the goblin warrior, but is it higher than the hobgoblin or not?" he wondered.

"Sh*t, I will have to wait until Monday to find that out," he thought.

"No, first I need to earn some money," he thought and quickly started filling in the black box with goblin marbles.

It took about 15 minutes for each batch of goblins to be done. By the time each one was done, he expectantly opened the box as he wondered what it was.

Some were goblin warriors and he was happy, some were goblin wizards and he was very happy, and some were goblin archers that just disappointed him.

"Mark, I'm hungry," his sister cried out from the living room. Mark was on his 5th batch of marbles, so he left them there and went to the kitchen to fix his sister some food. He was a little hungry too, so he decided to eat some as well.

'Is she really hungry or is she just bored?' Mark wondered.

He walked out of the kitchen with food and handed it to his sister.

"Look, look, my favorite cartoon is on," she said as she watched the show.

Mark smiled a little and looked as well.

"Yuron! You won't get away with this," the character on the TV spoke.

"Haha Hero, you cannot do anyth— We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news. There has been a dungeon break in the Northern part of City C."

"If you live anywhere near these located areas on the screen then please evacuate slowly without panic."

"From the reports we have, not many monsters have come out, but the ones who have are dangerous. Please be careful."

"This is the first dungeon break since the one in City D 2 years ago where our beloved hero gave his life to protect the world. However, do not worry. This dungeon break is not on the same level as that one."

The reporter suddenly put his finger to his ear and said, "This just in, the Frost Giants guild have already approached the area of dungeon break and are on their way to defeating all the monsters. With the frost giants at work, you can be sure that the dungeon break will be contained."

Mark watched the television dumbfounded. 'A dungeon break on the northern side… that's the F-Ranked Goblin dungeon, isn't it?'

His mind started wandering to different possibilities.

'Did… did it break because no one cleared it today? Does that mean that more monster breaks are possible if we don't clear the dungeons?' he started wondering.

The memories of that day were still fresh on his mind and the new just helped make them vivid. The pain, the death, the monsters, his sister… all came back flooding again. Despair was starting to take over him once more.

"Hey! That's not my cartoon. Stupid TV, give me back my show. I was watching it," his sister started pressing random buttons on the TV remote to bring back her precious cartoon.

"Wait, sister. You'll break it," he hurriedly caught the remote and barely managed to open her grip to snatch it away.

"Give it back," she tried to snatch it back, but he quickly changed the channel to another kid's show and managed to contain her anger.

"Phew," he said and went back to his room. It was time to continue grinding out marbles.